what is actually happening psychologically/physiologically when you have a “gut feeling” about something?
In: Biology
I know that this comment probably won’t even get read but I’m currently reading Social Intelligence, a book on psychology and neuroscience by Daniel Goleman and I’ve just read about a similar subject.
A series of tests were carried out whereby someone would tell a stranger an emotional personal experience and would have their body language mirror those emotions (e.g. looking sad). They then ran the same scenarios but had the storyteller display the opposite body language such as smiling or laughing.
The results were that people would not trust the second person as much as the first and put it down to a “gut feeling”. This was actually caused by part of the brain called the amygdala that flares up when something like this doesn’t add up and just feels odd.
Granted this example is only to do with human interaction rather than other “gut feelings”.
I’ve only just read about this so anyone with more knowledge on the subject please correct me if I’m wrong 🙂
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